The Kronstadt Naval Museum is the main historical museum for the city and covers the naval history of Russia from Peter the Great's founding of the base in 1704 through to the Soviet era. The collections include weapons, instruments, maps, uniforms, ship models, and personal objects from officers and sailors across three centuries of naval history.
The museum occupies a substantial historic building near the central harbour. The Russian Imperial Navy's history is genuinely dramatic — the Baltic Fleet's role in the Napoleonic Wars, the disaster at Tsushima in 1905, the mutinies of 1905 and 1921 — and the collection covers it with more candour than most Soviet-era museums managed. The exhibits on the Kronstadt rebellion of 1921 are particularly interesting, though still narrated carefully. English labelling is limited, but the material speaks for itself.